Think or feel? Hell no. And your specific example falls under ‘sexual harassment’.
But if I got a DUI, or resisted arrest, or made an explicitly racist post, or one calling for violence? Hell yes they could fire me. It’s debatable they could fire you- explicitly - for a Trump 2020 bumper sticker, but unless you could PROVE that this was the reason, you’re hosed.
There are three exceptions to “At Will” employment:
1 ‘Public Policy’
For example, in most states, an employer can’t terminate an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim after being injured on the job, or for refusing to engage in illegal activity at the request of an employer.
2-Implied Contract Exception
An employer may make oral or written representations to employees regarding job security or procedures that will be followed when discipline is imposed. *IF* you have this in writing, you might be good. This is a major part of the good that Unions do for the worker (when they bother to do it). IOW, if there’s a ‘book’ and they didn’t go ‘by the book’. Or they say ‘You’re good here unless you kill a partner”....
3- Covenant of Good Faith Exception
This exception means either that employer personnel decisions are subject to a “just cause” standard or that terminations in bad faith or motivated by malice are prohibited; It’s *just* possible that turning down the boss’s advances and being fired as a result can backfire on them, *IF* you have witnesses or other evidence.
So unless she has some evidence of a contract or commitment - and usually the paperwork you sign when hired explicitly states this is NOT the case - they can fire her for any or no reason.
Not that a good lawyer couldn’t rack up some hours on this, but there are often bits buried in any employment contract that no one ever reads that say ‘moral character’ or the like.
Lots and lots of Freepers are vehemently anti-union and strongly pro ‘Right To Work’, this is the other side of that.
Again, the above is just my understanding of why they damn well could fire her, or why an employer could fire me if I did something that brought them embarassment... I’m completely open to counter examples from real life.
“And your specific example falls under ‘sexual harassment’.”
Actually, it doesn’t. You said since someone paid you something that they can extract under penalty of employment termination anything they want. I want to know if you have any limits on that.
We Americans have lost our sense of freedom, liberty, including personal property. We have been brainwashed into thinking an employer is a slave owner and we as employees are bound by whatever our slave master demands.
Just because you and someone exchanged labor for money one day doesn’t give them the right to demand anything of you after that with a promise that tomorrow you’ll do it again. Even dumber, by your own admission, they don’t even have to bring you back for work tomorrow.
Because of such ignorant nonsense, States have had to create laws to protect people from such employers. New York is one of those States, as is my State of Colorado.
The women in question is protected from termination by her employer in New York.